Lakeview Water Supply Pump Station (N1)

(Satellite, the second station was torn down in the 1979)

Before Chicago annexed the Lake View Township, it was responsible for its own water supply.

Chicago Tribune
Jan 22, 1892, Page 1
(access)

Unlike Chicago, which used a tunnel and crib to supply its pumping station, Lake View used a pipe with a screen over the intake. The screen is about 6-10 feet below the surface. Ground up ice and snow picks up sand from the shore and when it floats over an inlet, it is so heavy that the strong current sucks it toward the screen.

Chicago Tribune

Jan 22, 1892, Page 1

When the screen gets plugged, a diver goes out in a rowboat to pick and scrape the ice away. The men in the little boat keep the huge cakes of ice from crushing the boat or cutting the tube which supplies the diver's air. They were working on a tunnel and crib to replace the pipes, but work was going just 6-7 feet a day since they were deep enough that they were digging through limestone rock. Some thought the tunnel should have been more shallow so that they would be in blue clay were the digging would go much faster. The beginning of LakeView Historical Chronicles shows the crib that was eventually built for Lake View.

The original Lake View Township Pumping Station operated from 1876-1913 in the northeast quadrant of the corner of Clarendon and Montrose Avenues.

Photo from HAER ILL, 16-CHIG,106--2 from il0420
See also an 1895 photo
Originally it had a 2.5mgd "Flanders" high pressure condensing engine having two 15"x15" steam cylinders with two double acting pumping ends with 14" diameter plunges and 20" stroke. In 1884 a Worthington duplex horizontal compound condensing engine of 5mgd capacity was installed. In 1888 a Gaskill 12mgd unit was installed. In 1892 a second Gaskill 12mgd unit was installed.

Chicago annexed Lake View in 1899.  During 1907-09 a new engine house was built to provide four more pumping stations. Details of what was put in the annex start on page 2 of the il420 data pages.
Work started on a replacement station in 1913. It was operational from 1915-1959. (Two temporary turbine centrifugal pumps with a capacity of 20mpd each were used while the old station was torn down and the new one built.) The new one was torn down in 1979.

Photo from HAER ILL, 16-CHIG,106--1 from il0420
It used 3 Nordberg pumping engines and a Bethlehem Steel pumping engine, each with a capacity of 25mgd.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Only this station and the Chicago Pumping Station had coal delivered by truck instead of by rail cars.

The HAER report has a lot of construction photos. As an example here are three photos concerning the construction of the pump engines.

Photo from HAER ILL, 16-CHIG,106--18 from il0420
 NO. 4 ENGINE
[Plumbing and flywheels are installed]

Photo from HAER ILL, 16-CHIG,106--20 from il0420
NO. 4 ENGINE. CYLINDERS & RECEIVERS INSTALLED

Photo from HAER ILL, 16-CHIG,106--60 from il0420
NORDBERG MFGR. CO. ERECTION SHOP